The vendor's troubles with shipping hardware with Linux don't lie in "extreme fragmentation" or "hard to decide which distribution / software stack to sell the

The vendor's troubles with shipping hardware with Linux don't lie in "extreme fragmentation" or "hard to decide which distribution / software stack to sell the hardware with". Just so you don't think about it again: it's mostly Microsoft blackmailing people into not selling ANYTHING but Windows on the hardware. If you think that's not true, you should really think of the time when ASUS was selling netbooks with Linux. I recall reading a lot of stories about vendors being blackmailed by Microsoft - stop selling hardware with Linux or you will not receive any more rights to sell your hardware with Windows.